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Midwest IBM P70 possible trade or sale?

Covers: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio
OP @tblake05, What are you asking for the whole machine, before shipping?

I don't know. What is fair for one of these? Works- though not fully tested (floppy drive). "catch" that you push to keep the display in. latch thing, doesn't hold it. Whole thing needs a good clean and retrobrite.
 
I had one of those years back and as usual the floppy was crap. So I made up a cable using a standard 34 conductor floppy cable and separated out the 2 power
pins and 1 ground pin. I connected those to the appropriate connectors onto a Berg type floppy power cable. I trimmed down the eject button so it would fit in the eject hole
of the P70. Took a few tries but got it to fit in there like a glove. Worked fine. As far as The HDD they are a PITA to locate a working one. The 120MB in mine gave after about 6 months.

I think I still have my home made floppy cable I made for it. Oh BTW the floppy drive was an ALPS drive. IBM used those alot.
 
The interface looks like a standard 34-pin floppy connector, but the pinout is a bit different. On the PS/2, power comes through the 34-pin connector, and not a separate power connector. You have to modify a standard floppy slightly to break the power out from the PS/2's 34-pin connector and wire it to the standard floppy drive's power connector, or create a custom cable that does this
 
I don't know. What is fair for one of these? Works- though not fully tested (floppy drive). "catch" that you push to keep the display in. latch thing, doesn't hold it. Whole thing needs a good clean and retrobrite.
On eBay they seem to go for 200-300, but I have no idea if that's fair. I am probably looking to spend in the $200 range for a project machine, plus or minus depending on what shipping comes out to. (Sorry, I am new here, so I can't DM you, yet).
 
Regarding the floppy, my latest thought it to just take a 34-pin cable, cut out the power lines 3 (5V) and 6 (12V), then hook that up to an externally powered gotek. I really just need a temp solution to boot the ref disk so I can fix the CMOS settings and hope that the hard drive works...
 
Regarding the floppy, my latest thought it to just take a 34-pin cable, cut out the power lines 3 (5V) and 6 (12V), then hook that up to an externally powered gotek. I really just need a temp solution to boot the ref disk so I can fix the CMOS settings and hope that the hard drive works...
I've seen someone selling custom cables on ebay for around $15, also
 
MCA SCSI adapter w/ cache
Beast of a card! These were the two ESDI paperweights I was looking at:

 
MCA SCSI adapter w/ cache I found on eBay looking for other stuff.. Little pricey but might be able to talk the seller down some... $150ish


You have to be really careful with SCSI adapters and PS/2s, a lot of the IBM ones will only work with specific models of machines, or aren't bootable, etc, etc... but *maybe* this one would work in a P70? There's someone on this page that, if I'm interpreting it right, got it working on a desktop Model 70.

I guess if I really wanted to go all-in on building a PS/2 I'd take that over another DBA drive that even if it initially works will probably have a life expectancy measured in hours. But it won't be cheap. ($90 for the card, another $70 or so for a SCSI2SD or the like, probably a few bucks for pieces to make a custom cable... You're gonna need to love that PS/2)
 
I've seen someone selling custom cables on ebay for around $15
I tracked one of these adapters down on eBay today, very convenient option. I almost bought one but instead decided to just cut pins 3 and 6 off my gotek so the power from the IBM floppy connector never reaches the gotek. Worked great and I’m back in business. Fortunately the HD works. Apparently the machine was used as a “Portable Science Station” at a local private school back in the early/mid-90s running some IBM EduQuest software. Looks like maybe you were to hook up some probes to do some data gathering/experiments.
 
On eBay they seem to go for 200-300, but I have no idea if that's fair. I am probably looking to spend in the $200 range for a project machine, plus or minus depending on what shipping comes out to. (Sorry, I am new here, so I can't DM you, yet).
Ya. I’m not really sure what’s fair on these. Like stated, I’d really like to trade for a 700 series ps2 thinkpad. But may consider a clamshell Mac laptop. Plus or minus cash.
 
Bump! Still have it! Open to offers!

Anyone have a clamshell Mac iBook they want to trade plus cash?
 
Never realized these had an oddball HD. Adding larger drives was on my to-do list, but I see that's not likely?

About 7 years ago I responded to a CL ad giving away a bunch of TRS-80 stuff. Had my SUV loaded up and last minute I decided to grab 2 P70 systems for the heck of it because they seemed interesting.
Both worked great with the exception of the floppy drives. One is running a 486 with an overdrive at 100 mhz and the other 586 @ 133 mhz. Both have 64mb of memory.
Not sure why people make a big deal out of the floppy drives. At the time I bought some new Memorex drives off Amazon for about $5 bucks each including shipping and modified the included cable. Other than the white eject button they fit and look 100% stock. Didn't have to modify anything on the P70 and can eventually repair and reinstall the original drives and cables.

The big regret part...I could have taken FIVE more of them!
 
Bump! Still have it! Open to offers!

Anyone have a clamshell Mac iBook they want to trade plus cash?
I have a clamshell mac I was just about to list soon for sale, perhaps if someone has something in trade that I would want... Could do a round robin trade.
 
My wife would kill me, especially around the holidays.... but what are you asking for the clamshell?
 
Throwing it out there also: I’m an arcade collector. Currently in search of Atari stuff, mainly tempest pcb/monitor. Maybe missile command. Possible arkanoid control panel and marquee. Nintendo Playchoice or vs unisystem stuff.

Happy thanksgiving all!
 
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